The Festival’s Third Day Celebrated the Legacy of Héctor Babenco

The third day of the 41st Mar del Plata International Film Festival offered an intense schedule in which screenings from the official competitions intersected with debates, press roundtables, and moments of great emotion.

With packed theaters throughout the day, the program reaffirmed the value of direct encounters among filmmakers, the press, and the public.

The central event on Saturday took place at 6:00 p.m. at Chauvin Centro de Creación, where a moving tribute was paid to Héctor Babenco, the beloved filmmaker born in Mar del Plata who achieved international recognition and left an indelible mark on film history. The tribute brought together his daughter, Myra Babenco; his grandson, Pedro; his close collaborator Alberto Gieco; and actress Esmeralda Mitre, in a conversation moderated by critic Guillermo Colantonio. During the talk, Myra Babenco reflected on the vitality of her father’s work and the urgency of reassessing titles such as Pixote and Lucio Flavio, whose social sensibility and pioneering view of marginality continue to speak to the present. The event also included an institutional recognition, with a distinction presented by the authorities of the Ente Municipal de Turismo y Cultura together with the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Brazil in Argentina, María Kallás.

In the competitions, the morning began at the Auditorium with the screening in the International Competition of A Professora de Francês, by Brazilian filmmaker Ricardo Alves Jr. Simultaneously, the theaters at Paseo Aldrey hosted the Argentine Competition with the premiere of El agonista, a biodrama directed by Sebastián Manusovich and Pablo Pintor that explores the experience of spasticity in the first person, challenging traditional views of disability.

Press activity added a notable highlight at the end of the 4:10 p.m. screening on the cinema level of Paseo Aldrey. Director Román Cárdenas led the meeting with the press to review production details and the narrative keys of the documentary El Diego que no fue.

Toward the close of the day, the park at Centro Cultural Villa Victoria hosted an outdoor screening of the classic A Place in the World, by Adolfo Aristarain. The screening was part of the tribute to composer Emilio Kauderer, honored at this year’s festival with the Astor for Lifetime Achievement, bringing to a close a Saturday in which film history and the pulse of contemporary cinema once again coexisted in Mar del Plata.